


Say "Thank You"

by telekinesiskid



Category: Big Hero 6 (2014)
Genre: Abusive Caregiver, Abusive!Aunt Cass, Child Neglect, Child Physical Abuse, Graphic Violence, Horrific Children's Games, Implied Child Abuse, Off-Screen Beating, Orphans, Protective Big Brother Tadashi, Trauma, Unreliable Child Narrator, aged-down characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-28
Updated: 2015-05-02
Packaged: 2018-03-26 04:22:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 14,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3836947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/telekinesiskid/pseuds/telekinesiskid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hiro doesn't understand why he has to say "thank you" to Aunt Cass every night after dinner. He doesn't see how it's so important. </p><p>Especially when Tadashi seems to be doing all the work.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Yet ANOTHER abusive caregiver Aunt Cass story. I really must get onto that story where I write her as the sympathetic and amazing and caring character that she is. I actually really love her character! And yet.... I keep producing these types of stories .-.
> 
> Um my AWESOME beta Kiiouex (cue applause) convinced me to do a different ending to the one I originally planned, so if people so desire it then I can absolutely write that scene as a second chapter in which Hiro would um come to horrifically understand just what kind of situation he and his brother are actually in. And what his brother has been trying to protect him from for all these years.
> 
> (first time writing present tense, third person limited - I'm sorry if it's weird :V)
> 
> For reference = Hiro is 7 (um and SMART) and Tadashi is 12.

“Do you remember them?”

The question startles Hiro awake. His older brother had been quiet for so long that he’d actually started to drift off, in his lap, warm arms wrapped secure around his waist. Hiro hums inquisitively and Tadashi repeats the question, only his voice sounds a lot croakier this time. Like he has a cold. Like he has something stuck in his throat.

Tadashi fingers the sharp edges of the lightly crinkled photo. “Do you have any memories of them?”

Hiro thinks about it. He stares at the face of his mother, smiling proudly back at him. There’s a necklace around her neck but it doesn’t look quite right to Hiro; he remembers a necklace that was a lot thicker, clunkier. And it doubled as special headphones. What did people call it?

He points to their mother’s neck. “She had a… stepharope.”

It takes a couple of seconds for Tadashi to chuckle, close to his ear. Like his voice, it too sounds different. “I think you mean a _stethoscope,_ buddy. You mean the thing you put in your ears and use to listen to someone’s heartbeat?”

“Yeah, that.”

“That’s a stethoscope. Say it with me. _Steth-o-scope._ ”

 _“Steth-o-scope,”_ Hiro mimics impeccably, and Tadashi gives him a little squeeze around his middle. Then Tadashi’s hands return to ghost over the faces of their parents.

“Mum was a doctor,” Tadashi murmurs. “She wasn’t around much, but she worked hard. She helped a lot of sick people. Whenever I was sick, she let me stay home from school. Before she left for the hospital, she put me in bed and gave me nice food and extra pillows and let me watch movies. And dad would always sit with me. It was nice.”

Hiro stays quiet for a while. He doesn’t know what to say. Those are Tadashi’s memories, not any of his. He can’t contribute. He can’t sympathise.

He expects Tadashi will keep talking to him, will share more of his memories with him, but his older brother just falls quiet again. Unnervingly quiet.

Hiro almost startles his brother this time when he asks, “What did dad do?”

“Dad? He was a software engineer. He worked hard too, but mostly from home, so he could take care of us. We spent the day with dad and the night with mum. He’d actually starting dabbling in robotics by the time you were born. We helped build a couple of them... Don’t you remember?”

Tadashi has asked him that question so many times tonight that Hiro actually begins to feel a dull and hollow ache of guilt, like he’s a bad son for not remembering their parents. Like he’s somehow let them down, and his brother too.

He lowers his chin a tiny fraction and murmurs, “Sorry, ‘Dashi.” Then he feels a slow hand brush through his hair.

“It’s OK, Hiro,” Tadashi whispers, swallowing hard. “I’m sorry. I keep pushing. I guess I forget sometimes that… you were only three when…” He swallows again. The hand in Hiro’s hair stops moving suddenly and settles. “It’s just… It’s been five years, today… since…”

Hiro waits for his older brother to finish that sentence, but he doesn’t. Hiro decides to finish it for him.

“Since they died.”

Tadashi doesn’t move for a while. Hiro isn’t even sure he can hear the light sounds of his brother’s breathing anymore. He needs a _steth-o-scope_ , he thinks, to listen to Tadashi’s heartbeat. To check if he’s still alive.

He’s so quiet and so still that it starts to worry Hiro. He asks for him, “’Dashi?” and turns his head over his shoulder to peek up at his older brother. His eyes widen a little as he half-catches sight of Tadashi’s face.

Even for Tadashi, he looks tired today.

He tilts his head to see his little brother better and he smiles. “Hiro?” he parrots him.

“…Are you OK?”

Tadashi scoffs. He doesn’t answer the question immediately and he doesn’t rush to assure Hiro he’s fine, like he usually does. He just breaths out a careful sigh and rests his chin over Hiro’s shoulder. He passes the photo onto Hiro so he can wrap his own arms all the way around his little brother and hold him close, keeping him warm in the cold attic.

“I’m OK, Hiro. I just… miss them so much,” he breathes, sounding a little winded. Like he ran into a desk and had the breath knocked out of him. Like he’s freezing and can’t quite fight back shivers and trembles. Hiro doesn’t know what’s wrong with him, but there definitely is something. “Which is w-why we need to remember them… right, buddy?”

Hiro doesn’t say anything. He just closes his eyes and wishes with all his might that he could remember.

 

Tadashi works hard, Hiro understands. Just like their parents. Maybe that was a trait that ran in the family. But he still doesn’t understand why his older brother works as hard as he does, all of the time. He never lets himself have a break. It’s the same stringent routine every day, and it never changes for the better – only for the worse. Even in the weekends, he doesn’t ever so much as have a sleep-in or come to bed early. Even in the holidays, he’s still too exhausted most days to take Hiro to the park or play games with him or run around and have some real fun with him.

Hiro wonders if it’s self-inflicted. If it makes Tadashi feel good in a strange sort of way to always keep so busy.

And he wonders if it’s what killed their parents in the end.

 

He’s always up far too early. Tadashi has an alarm clock set for five in the morning – well before the sun is even up – and he doesn’t even hit the snooze button as Hiro is so often inclined to do when it goes off again at seven.

Every now and again Hiro startles awake whenever his older brother accidentally jostles him as he pulls himself out of Hiro’s arms. Sometimes the lack of warm body to cling to is so stark that it yanks Hiro right out of sleep. He pulls the layers of threadbare blankets closer, cocooning himself them in, and he takes slow, bleary blinks as he watches Tadashi get up. His brother is just a shadow in the pale pre-morning light of the attic; Tadashi stretches and stands up from the old mattress on the floor. He doesn’t always rush to the bathroom; sometimes he stops and breathes sharply and inspects parts of his body underneath his clothes, though Hiro never understands why. But he’s already fallen asleep again by that point.

Maybe it’s a growing-up thing, Hiro thinks. It’s hard for him to think of Tadashi as being almost a teenager, but he is. Even though he’s so mature.

Tadashi is already showered and dressed by the time he’s at Hiro’s side again, shaking him gently awake and insisting that he get up. Hiro always groans and flips over, pleading, “Five more minutes,” and it’s only after another four “five more minutes” that Tadashi shifts his attitude from indulgent to boosting. But he doesn’t become too serious. He tickles and prods Hiro until his little brother is rolling around laughing, too keyed up now to possibly go back to sleep. Hiro gets to his feet and gets a playful shove towards the bathroom.

It’s cold in the mornings. Even in summer, and especially so in winter. Hiro doesn’t have any night clothes – Tadashi doesn’t either, but he still manages to find a pair of tattered pants and an oversized, stained shirt to sleep in – so he sleeps only in his underwear. He runs across the floorboards, squeaking shrilly at how _cold_ the dank and dark attic is – even though Tadashi promises him no doors or windows are open – and he throws the door closed behind him as he enters their little shared bathroom.

It’s cold in there too. There’s no window; just a lightbulb suspended over a sink, a toilet, and an old steel showerhead with a tile floor and drain. He turns on the shower and waits up to three minutes for the water to warm up, but it never gets any warmer. He sets the dial to the deepest, hottest _red,_ and it only ever turns from freezing to cool _._ Tadashi tries to insist, when Hiro complains, that that’s just the way the shower is and that he should be used to it by now.

But Hiro still suspects that his brother uses up all of the hot water. And just won’t ever admit it.

He leaves the bathroom, no steam to follow him out, and walks back to the mattress in his towel, which gets increasingly damp and gross with every day that passes until the week is up, and they get washed again on Sunday. Tadashi’s on the floor with his legs crossed, a pen in his hand and his eyes on some kind of workbook in his lap. He’s already laid Hiro’s little uniform out for him and Hiro puts the towel over his wet hair as he dresses.

He puts on his clothes, from his underwear to his knee socks to his shorts to his button-up shirt. He can tie his shoelaces, though he still can’t do up his red-and-blue tie on his own. But he’s already thought of an easy way to get around that; he loosens out the knot every day after school and, in the mornings, he just pulls it over his head and tightens it under his collar. No one is the wiser.

Lastly he puts on his blazer, and then Tadashi is smiling up at him, closing the workbook and pushing it into his backpack.

“Ready to go?” he asks.

“Yep,” Hiro proclaims.

“Brushed your teeth?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Hung up your towel?” he asks, smirking as he holds it up for him.

“Uh…” Hiro grabs it from his older brother, shooting to the other side of the attic. He throws his towel over a low-hanging rafter to catch it in the sunlight beaming through a small window on the roof. Then he runs back to Tadashi and grins, “yep!”

Tadashi ruffles his little brother’s hair, standing up and shouldering his backpack easy. He always makes it look much lighter than Hiro knows it really is.

“Let’s go, buddy.”

 

They walk to school together. Hiro holds one of his brother’s hands and in his other holds an old muesli bar or a burnt pastry or a stale piece of bread, or any other food item Tadashi had managed to find for him. Tadashi never eats breakfast with him on their walk. Hiro had stopped asking why that was a while ago, because Tadashi never changes his answer; he always insists that he ate earlier, in the café. While Hiro was still sleeping.

The walk to school is far. It’s a couple of miles down from the café – which makes the uphill walk back a lot harder – and takes forty to sixty minutes. It depends on how crowded the sidewalks get with fellow pedestrians, or how impatient the trams and other vehicles are to keep them from crossing the road, even when the lights are green. Hiro has lost track of how many times Tadashi has had to yank Hiro back and save him from getting hit by a car, but he knows it’s been a lot. Enough times to merit Tadashi holding his hand at all times.

By the time they reach school, Hiro’s feet are already a little sore, but it’s not nearly as bad as it used to be, when he was just starting out school a couple of years ago. Tadashi always tells him that he does well, but Hiro doesn’t understand why they don’t just catch a tram, or rent bikes, or take something else faster and more convenient.

It makes him wonder if rigorous exercise counted as hard work for Tadashi too.

If there’s time and Hiro hasn’t been dawdling, Tadashi bends down to give Hiro a hug and tells him, above everything else, to do his best. Even in the subjects he doesn’t particularly like – PE and Japanese and the social sciences – he still has to put his all into everything he does. He has to make everyone see just how smart he is, because they both _know_ how smart he is. He just has to prove it to them.

Tadashi also reminds him to stay out of trouble. And then he smiles, “Have a good day, knucklehead,” and runs for his middle school syndicate, while Hiro reluctantly wanders over to the junior blocks.

 

He gets bored in class. He finishes the set work well before the rest of his peers, and he doesn’t always let his teacher know, even though Tadashi insists that he should. Instead, he draws. He draws little robots and ninjas and characters from Tadashi’s old comic books, and sometimes even parts of broken appliances he sees accumulate in the opposite corners of the attic.

He’s always a little astounded – like his brother – by how good his memory is, when he takes the drawing home and compares it to the original. Tadashi asks him how he does that and Hiro shrugs because he can’t explain it; he just does. He can just hold particular images in his head so well. When he draws from memory, it’s just a good guess.

Tadashi thinks it’s impressive. But no one else really does.

Especially not Aunt Cass.

He exceeds in his favourite subjects, math and science. He also likes art, and any other subjects that involve practical, hands-on work. He enjoys actually _doing_ things, and constructing and disassembling and playing with things, rather than just sitting in a desk all day, theorising and discussing. Writing and reading. He doesn’t like that kind of work, because it’s too easy and too predictable and too boring. It doesn’t pique his interest, or else he finishes the tests much too soon and the teacher doesn’t have anything else for him to do, so he just has to sit there and wait for everyone else in his class to finish, and he gets so _bored._

So he tries to keep himself entertained, any way he can.

And then his teachers get all annoyed with him and put words on his report card he doesn’t recognise, but make Tadashi grimace – like ‘stroppy’ and ‘obstinate’and ‘distractible’.

Lunchtimes are much better than class. He wishes he could spend at least some of it with Tadashi, but his brother insists he is always so busy, busy, busy, so Hiro fills in the time productively. He teaches himself about the things that interest _him,_ and at his own pace. He learns a lot more from a few interesting books in the library, or taking a peek inside an old fuse box, or at a motherboard in an old machine from the least popular computer lab, than he does sitting bored in class. He retains almost every bit of information he learns too, and he rehearses it all back to Tadashi later, like he’s still reading it from the page, and he asks questions and fixates on certain things until he’s confident he understands them. It’s something that Tadashi actively encourages every single day, even when Hiro’s grouchy and tired.

Because learning was important to their parents, and it’s important to Tadashi too.

He’s often asked by his peers and teachers who his best friend is. He always grins and immediately responds, “Tadashi!” to which their faces turn to stare at each other blankly, obviously confused. They ask if Tadashi is a student from another school or an imaginary friend and Hiro shakes his head. He clarifies, “Tadashi is my big brother.”

And then they stare at him a little bit longer.

It’s not that he’s badat making friends and keeping them. He’s capable of talking to his classmates and making them laugh and understanding what they mean, even though they use less words than he does and don’t speak as clearly. It’s just that he doesn’t find anyone in his classes particularly interesting. But, as a collective, he likes his classmates. He participates in projects and group activities and treats everyone equally, and in the same way he expects to be treated. Even if he didsometimes think to himself that he was better and smarter and more awesome than they were. That’s the kind of thing he keeps to himself, because Tadashi wants him to remain ‘humble’ and not get too ‘arrogant’.

Even though Tadashi still breaks a proud smile and tells Hiro that he’s a little genius.

He promises Hiro almost every week that one day people will realise just how smart he really is. And they’ll take notice and take an interest and do something about it.

And then maybe things will change.

But Hiro doesn’t really know what his older brother means by that.

 

At the end of every school day, Hiro follows his classmates out the door and down the drive, but he doesn’t jump into a car or hop on a bus like the others do. He sits under the big tree at the front of the lawn, near the gate, and he waits exactly half an hour for his brother. School for the juniors finishes at three, and everyone else finishes at three-thirty.

Usually Hiro doesn’t mind waiting. Over time, half an hour didn’t become too long for him at all – not _nearly_ as long as he feels some of his classes drag on for, and especially not when he can do whatever he likes. He sometimes pulls out a novel he issued out from the library and reads a few chapters, or he spends twenty-five minutes completing an assignment the teachers had warned would take a few hours. He fills in the time easy, and then another flood of students spill down the drive and out into the street.

Tadashi rewards him for waiting. Every day, when he sees Hiro standing there under the tree, ready to go, he reaches into his pocket first thing and hands him a tiny sweet. Sometimes it’s a jelly bean, or a chocolate button, or a marshmallow, or a toffee, or a gummy. They change every month or so, and Hiro doesn’t care which sort he gets next; candy is candy, and he doesn’t get a lot of it – not nearly as much as some of his classmates did. So he cups his hands and receives the treat and savours whatever delicious taste it leaves in his mouth.

He walks back home with his brother and tells him all about his day. Tadashi shares only sparing details about his, but Hiro doesn’t mind when he has so many new things to tell him and ask him. Compared to the mornings – when he’s still groggy – he spends a lot more time talking and walking leisurely and passing up green pedestrian lights rather than making a rush to catch them before they turn red.

He always thinks he has a lot more time to spend with his brother now, but then Tadashi abruptly reminds him that he has to work in the café, and they really need to hurry back.

The café is still busy from the afternoon by the time they both walk in. Tadashi doesn’t even race upstairs to put his backpack away; he just hands it to Hiro – it’s always so heavy – and tells him to eat the food in there if he gets hungry, and insists that he’ll be up in a few hours. Hiro watches as his older brother breaks away from him, disappears into the backroom, and emerges what feels like seconds later carrying plates of food, no longer in his blazer but a black apron with the Lucky Cat café signature on the breast. Immediately he’s smiling at customers, making small talk, taking their orders and running them their coffees, but Hiro can still see how tired he is.

Hiro still has no idea why his brother chooses to work for her.

He sits on a barstool. He struggles to pour himself a glass of water from a big jug and he hangs around for a bit, just watching the crowd. He pecks at crumbs of a half-finished cheese scone, until he spots Aunt Cass sweeping down the stairs, through the café, and he freezes. Tadashi shoots him urgent looks from across the café, and Hiro takes the hint to run upstairs, as fast as he can, all the way up to the attic. He shuts the door behind himself, like Tadashi tells him to.

He doesn’t come out for anyone, like Tadashi instructs him to. He doesn’t let anyone else in.

“It’s… a game,” Tadashi once told him, when they were both sitting up in the attic with the door closed and the lights out. “It’s a game of _Hide and Seek_. You love that game, don’t you? Everyone’s playing. Even Aunt Cass. You don’t answer the door when she knocks, or when she asks for you to come out. You don’t make a sound. Even if she comes in here, you hide. You _cannot,”_ he places a scary emphasis on the word, “let her find you… OK, buddy? You have to be the champion of hiding. And, the game is over when I come back.”

They play this game every day. But it’s not as fun as when he plays it with his classmates at school.

He just has to wait for Tadashi to come back, and then it’ll be over.

He usually completes his homework first, if he hasn’t already. But even then, it still doesn’t take up very much of the long hours he has ahead of him. He rummages through Tadashi’s backpack and finds a sandwich half to munch on, or a small apple, or else something that must’ve come from the cafeteria at school because he didn’t recognise it from the café cabinets. He eats until his stomach isn’t growling anymore, and then he might draw a little, or read some library books, or he might poke through some of mom and dad’s things that are kept in stacks on the other side of the attic.

He opens a box at random and takes a look inside. The boxes are musty-smelling and touching them unsettles a lot of dust, but he doesn’t mind. He pulls out cool trinkets and heavy books and various things he likes to look at and play with, even if he doesn’t really know what they are or what they’re used for. He’d like to ask, but he reminds himself to keep an eye on how dark it gets outside and to put everything back the way it was before Tadashi comes back. Because Tadashi didn’t always like it when Hiro went through their parents’ things alone. Sometimes he was encouraging.

But most times he just got upset.

There’s no way to keep time in the attic without Tadashi. It gets dark enough outside that Hiro has to put on the little lamp on the floor, by the mattress. And then he lays down and rests his eyes because there’s just so much time and so little to do. He wishes Tadashi would buy a laptop or a cell phone like other kids his age, so Hiro would have something to play with when he’s not around.

He comes awake to the sounds of heavy, slow footfalls on the stairs. He sits up and the door creaks open to Tadashi. He smiles weakly and motions for Hiro to come to him, which he does in an instant.

“Dinner time, buddy,” Tadashi announces in a small voice, putting an arm around Hiro and directing him down the stairs. “Smells good, doesn’t it?”

Hiro makes a big show of enthusiastically inhaling the warm aroma from the kitchen. It smells so _good._ It smells rich and hearty. Like thick gravy, and golden potatoes, and roasted pumpkin, and _meat,_ and boiled greens. Dinner has always been Hiro’s favourite meal, for as long as he could remember. It’s the only meal that even comes close to filling him up, and leaves him with a warm feeling inside. Every other meal – breakfast, lunch, afternoon scraps – just pales like tasteless, cold, lumpy gruel in comparison.

They come into the kitchen to see two dinner plates laid out on the table, and Hiro makes a dash for the closest one. He pulls out the chair and crawls up onto it, onto his knees, and seizes his knife and fork. He gazes down at the hot delectable meal, tongue running over his lips. _Steam_ rises up off the food – it’s that fresh from the oven.

Hiro can barely restrain himself. He wants to _eat._

“Geez, wait for me, buddy,” Tadashi laughs as he pulls out his own chair and sits down. He smiles down at the food and declares, _“Itadakimasu.”_

 _“Itadakimasu!”_ Hiro re-joins excitedly, and then he immediately digs in; starting with the peas dowsed in gravy, moving onto the roasted vegetables, coming around to the juicy meat. He shovels in mouthful after mouthful, like it’s his first meal and his last, like he’s trying to eat everything all at once. Aunt Cass isn’t present tonight, so he doesn’t have to mind his manners so much, but Tadashi still places a firm hand on his head and orders him to slow down.

“Chew before you swallow, knucklehead,” Tadashi sighs, letting him go. “Or you’ll choke.”

Hiro glanced up at him. Tadashi usually took his own sweet time eating. He was only ever halfway through by the time Hiro had finished and licked his plate clean.

Sometimes, when the hunger is particularly ravenous, the food makes Hiro a little too eager – a little pushy and entitled. Tadashi liked to joke – when it was over, and they were both calm and happy again – that Hiro got into a feeding frenzy, like some oceanic predators did once they got a taste for blood and wanted more. Hiro doesn’t always sit and patiently wait for Tadashi to finish his meal, like he should. Instead he asks for more, and Tadashi tells him regretfully that there isn’t any more.

But there is more, Hiro thinks to himself. On Tadashi’s plate.

Sometimes, if he is polite and patient, Tadashi divvies up the remainder of his food with him. It happens often enough that Hiro has come to expect it, and if Tadashi tries to finish the rest of his food on his own and takes too long, Hiro decides to get the food by other means.

He tries to distract his older brother, to slip some food off his plate without his notice. Or else Tadashi makes it all too easy by staring off into space; he doesn’t seem to realise it’s been over a minute since his last mouthful, and by then Hiro has already stolen a potato or two. Sometimes he even asks Tadashi for a glass of water he doesn’t want – from the sink he can’t reach – and Hiro shoves as much food as he can into his mouth while his brother’s back is turned.

Tadashi nearly always catches him in the act. And he gets upset. He cries out how unfair that is. He’s every bit as serious as he tries so hard not to be; he tells Hiro off, warding away his little hands and asserting tearfully, almost whining, “You’ve already _had_ your dinner – this is _mine_ , Hiro! What about _me?_ What about _my food? Stop it!”_

Hiro always stops after Tadashi has to raise his voice to him, because it’s not fun and playful, not at all. Hiro settles back down and abruptly falls into a guilt-ridden silence that leaves his head hanging low, his eyes down to his empty plate. He can’t even insist that the portions were uneven and he’d gotten less, because he saw them with his own eyes. He’d picked the one that he’d though had the most food on it.

But he’s still hungry.

Sometimes, even after the fight, Tadashi still heaves a sigh and pushes the scraps of his food Hiro’s way.

Hiro perks up. He gasps with delight and squeaks a “thank you, ‘Dashi!” as he takes the rest of the food to his mouth with his bare hands. He can’t even wait to pick up a fork. He doesn’t even care if it’s just skins or bones, or if it’s cold now because Tadashi took so long. It’s still good. And Tadashi always ruffles his little brother’s hair as he stands up to start the dishes.

Hiro’s grateful that Tadashi isn’t ever as hungry as he is.

 

The dishwasher is usually running by the time they’ve finished eating. So Tadashi fills up the sink with hot, soapy water and washes their plates and cutlery, and a few pots and dishes too. He hands them to Hiro, along with a little checkered tea-towel, and Hiro dries them as well as he can before Tadashi puts them away. Back into their fancy cupboards with all the other clean and nice-smelling crockery.

Once they’re done, Tadashi leans against the kitchen counter and exhales, long and slow. Then he looks to Hiro and shows a flicker of a smile. “I think she’s downstairs,” he says, and Hiro nods. Tadashi holds out his arm, having no need to say anything more, and Hiro goes ahead of him, down the stairs into the darkened café, closed for the night.

They always do this. This was part of their routine.

Every night, after dinner, they stand before Aunt Cass to thank her for the wonderful meal that she made them. She never eats with them. Most days she isn’t even anywhere near the kitchen while they occupy it. But it’s her food that she so graciously prepares and cooks and leaves out for them to eat. And Tadashi tells Hiro that it’s so important to be respectful and show gratitude. Not just for the meal, but for everything that she did for them.

They find her leaning over the countertop, by the till, a calculator by her hand, the other scrawling messily into a chart. She doesn’t notice them there immediately. Tadashi stands next to Hiro and places an arm around him. He makes a meek little noise in his throat, and after a few seconds Aunt Cass looks up.

Hiro feels Tadashi’s head turn down to him. “What do you say, Hiro?” he murmurs.

Hiro stares into Aunt Cass’ face. Her expression changes almost every day, and some days the look she fixes him with makes it harder to speak than on others, but today it seems to be a bit softer. A bit kinder. A bit like mom, from the photo Tadashi had shown him recently.

Tadashi shakes his shoulder gently and forces Hiro to say it.

“Thank you, Aunt Cass.”

“Thank you, Aunt Cass,” Tadashi repeats for himself, with a lot more emotion and sincerity behind it than Hiro could ever hope to muster. “We appreciate everything you do for us. Really.”

It’s silent for a while. Hiro looks up at Tadashi, wanting to know why they don’t just leave now, because he already knows from experience that Aunt Cass isn’t going to do or say anything, and she doesn’t. She just looks between the two of them for a few long seconds before her eyes go back to her chart and she taps out a small calculation, and she goes back to pretending they’re not there. It’s very rare that she’ll ever acknowledge they’ve thanked her.

Despite that, Tadashi still insists how important it is that they do. Even if she doesn’t acknowledge it. Even if she stomps away from them. Or scowls at them. Or yells dirty words.  

It’s still so important.

But Hiro doesn’t see how. He doesn’t believe that Aunt Cass does as much for them as Tadashi insists she does. He doesn’t ever mean it when he says Thank You. He’s fairly sure Aunt Cass knows he doesn’t mean it.

But he still does it, if only to make his brother happy.

Tadashi eventually turns to leave, taking Hiro with him. They ascend the stairs together – Tadashi hushing Hiro whenever he’s deemed not quiet enough – and then they disappear into the attic until morning.

 

Nights with Tadashi are great. They’re the favourite part of his day, where he can spend up to a few hours with just his older brother, and have some real fun with him. They used to play with Tadashi’s old action figures from when he was Hiro’s age, mashing them and banging them together and narrating the cool adventures they shared. But lately the action figures had gone missing, or else Tadashi had exchanged them for thicker blankets or more toothpaste. But there was always something to play with. The huge stack of boxes surrounding them and their mattress in the corner guaranteed that.

It used to put Hiro out that Tadashi _still_ had a lot of work to do, but it doesn’t bother him so much anymore. He finds his brother’s work far more interesting than he does any of his own. He watches as Tadashi sighs and piles out all sorts of assignments and homework and worksheets and readings and other school things. The sheer amount of it easily quadruples whatever Hiro receives in a week. But some of it doesn’t always make sense. Hiro squints at two math papers that look identical. English assignments with the same questions but different answers. Or the same answers and… different handwriting. Different names at the top.

It’s weird.

Hiro asks about it but Tadashi doesn’t answer him. He says, “don’t worry about it, genius,” and he tackles Hiro until he lets it go, or else he shows him what 7th grade science looks like, and Hiro becomes _rapt._ He completes Tadashi’s homework with him, writing in the answers, learning on so many different levels as he goes, and Tadashi smiles widely like he can’t think of anything better to do with his time. He’s so pleased with Hiro’s progress some days that he instructs Hiro to close his hands and put out his hand, and by the time Hiro is allowed to open his eyes again, a little treat is sitting in his palm, waiting for him.

Tadashi openly worries about Hiro becoming so bored and distracted in class. Because he needs to keep stimulated to stay smart. He should be in advanced classes. He should be years ahead of where he currently was. He could probably even handle being in _Tadashi’s_ year. So that’s why he encourages Hiro to work so hard in the evenings. That’s why he pushes. So he doesn’t ever lose that gift, or waste his potential.

“As long as you’re educated and hard-working, you’ll go anywhere in life,” he tells his little brother, smiling distantly. “Like mom and dad. You’ll go anywhere. Away from here.”

“Here?” Hiro repeats, not understanding. He looks up at his brother when he doesn’t answer him, and then he feels a chill curl through him. He falls just as deathly quiet as Tadashi does, because he hears it too…

Footfalls. Quick. Hard. On the stairs, coming closer, approaching–

Tadashi gives his brother an enormous _shove_ towards the boxes as he hisses, _“Hide,”_ and Hiro runs for the box they kept empty and dives inside, pulling the lids closed, shutting himself into darkness, just as the door gives a loud _bang_ and flies open.

“Tadashi.”

It’s Aunt Cass. She’s found Tadashi.

He didn’t hide fast enough.

He lost.

Hiro holds a hand over his mouth to muffle his breathing in the sudden silence of the room. His heart pounds in his chest. His eyes are wide open but he can’t see a thing. He doesn’t know what’s happening.

“You must think I’m an idiot,” Hiro hears her say. “You really thought I wouldn’t notice ten dollars go missing from the till? After everything I do for you – this is the thanks I get? This is how you repay me? By _stealing_ from me?”

“A-Aunt Cass,” Hiro hears his brother. He sounds nervous. Shaky. He hears someone cross the floor but he doesn’t know who.

Tadashi’s next words are so quiet that Hiro struggles to hear them this time. “…do this here? Please?”

Something like a snarl cuts through the room, and then the door suddenly closes. Two pairs of feet descend the stairs, growing fainter and fainter by the second. Hiro keeps silent and still until he can’t hear anything anymore, until he decides it’s safe to poke his head out. There’s no one else in the attic. A couple of textbooks have been shifted across the floor, but nothing else is disturbed. It seems to be clear. But he’s not so sure if he should leave his box yet.

After a while, when nothing happens, the tension eases and gives way to boredom. He carefully leaves the box and crawls back to his little spot on the floor, no longer warm, with no other body to keep him warm. He sits as close to the lamp as he dares and pulls a blanket around himself and stares at all the work Tadashi had abruptly left behind. They’ve been having so much fun and getting so much done, but they’re not even close to finished.

Hiro picks up a pen and fills in a couple of blanks on a worksheet. He’s not entirely confident they’re the right answers, or he has the correct spelling. But something was better than nothing, as his brother always said.

He waits. He doesn’t know how long he waits for. Long enough that his eyelids start to feel heavy and his body droopy and his brain too fuzzy to focus on any piece of work anymore. But he can’t sleep.

Not without Tadashi.

Eventually the door opens and Hiro is instantly alert, staring wide-eyed and hopeful at his older brother as he turns to close the door behind him.

“’Dashi,” Hiro cries out, but Tadashi doesn’t come back to him. He paces along the wall, a hand in his hair, blocking his face from view, and Hiro frowns and jumps up after him. He runs to his older brother just as he reaches the small bathroom, “Tada–“

Tadashi closes the door in Hiro’s face.

Hiro can only blink for a few seconds, too stunned to react. He doesn’t know why his brother did that. He wonders if it was something he did and a deep, sinking feeling overcomes him. He knocks cautiously.

“’Da-shi?”

Tadashi calls out, muted from behind the door, _“Just go to bed, Hiro. I’ll be out later.”_

“…But I can’t sleep without you. And I’m tired now,” Hiro protests. He turns to stare at the floor behind him. “And you still have work here. It’s everywhere.”

It takes Tadashi longer to respond. When he does, his voice sounds… warbled. Uneven.

_“I’m sorry, Hiro. I know you’re tired, but… please, try to get some sleep without me, OK buddy? I’ll come out soon.”_

“But I haven’t brushed my teeth.”

_“Hiro, just… It’s OK. You can give them an extra brush tomorrow. Just go to bed buddy, for me, please.”_

Hiro can’t argue with him. He has no choice but to do as Tadashi asks.

He goes back to the mattress, undresses, and lies down. Tadashi’s school things brush up against his arm and irrational irritation flares through him like fire, just for a second, and he harshly kicks textbooks and pencils and things away from his feet, shoving them halfway across the room. A plastic-covered book slides across the floorboards and smacks into the far wall, and Tadashi doesn’t even so much as stir from behind the bathroom door. It’s not Hiro’s first tip-off that something’s wrong, but it’s definitely a confirmation. The normal Tadashi would’ve scolded him for being too rough by now.

Hiro pulls the blankets around him. He turns off the lamp and closes his eyes but he doesn’t feel anywhere near close to sleep. But he’s hoping the pretence will draw his brother out. And, eventually, it does.

Tadashi quietly leaves the bathroom. Hiro hears the gentle rustle of fabric as he removes his clothes. He feels a flash of cold as the blankets are pulled back a little, and he feels a change in weight distribution as Tadashi slides himself in, beside him, but never touching him. And then Tadashi breathes out and settles.

Hiro rolls over. He scoots towards his brother, throws an arm over him as he usually does, and Tadashi gives an almighty _wince_ the second their skin makes contact. But Hiro has no idea why; if anything it should be _Hiro_ wincing, because Tadashi’s skin is so much colder than his right now.

A hand reaches up to lightly push Hiro away. “Hiro,” Tadashi whispers, somehow already knowing that his little brother’s still wide awake. He forces Hiro to back up, to the other side of the mattress and not the centre. “Sorry buddy, I just need my space tonight. Sorry.”

Tadashi doesn’t say anything more. He doesn’t explain his sudden need for space.

He doesn’t explain what happened downstairs with Aunt Cass. Why he took so long. What that was all about.

He keeps a hand in Tadashi’s though, and that seems to be enough for Hiro and not too invasive for Tadashi. His older brother gives it a little squeeze and everything starts to feel cosy and peaceful and normal once again. He falls asleep in no time at all.

 

And then they wake up and do it all over again.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One day Hiro gets out of school early, and he doesn’t wait for Tadashi after school like he’s supposed to.
> 
> Instead he goes home on his own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh wow! Some of you guys seemed to really like this tragic story! Awesome. Well, as promised, here is the alternate ending/second chapter. It um is probably longer than the first .-. also, even for me, Aunt Cass is ridiculously OOC.
> 
> Um WARNING - my amazing, hard-working beta (Kiiouex) has warned me that this is very GRAPHIC. As in, almost every single little terrifying detail of Hiro's trauma is played out. So please please PLEASE be warned. But I hope it's still readable?? Enjoyable?? Is that even the appropriate word to use here??
> 
> (um also thought I might mention I have a tumblr of the same name (telekinesiskid) just if anyone wants to say hi or anything like that?? A couple of people have sought me out and it's just so nice <3)

One day, the junior school gets out a whole two and a half hours earlier than usual. Hiro can’t exactly remember why. If he’d been able to remember why then he would’ve remembered to mention it to Tadashi, so that they could’ve had some kind of plan, but he hadn’t mentioned it. He’d forgotten. And now classes are over, and he’s paused under the tree, just before the school gate, watching on enviously as his classmates run for their parents and get into their cars and drive home.

It’s not fair, he thinks. He still has hours to wait yet.

He remembers what his classmates had squealed to each other in the morning break; they said they were going to go straight home from school, to a home-cooked lunch, and they weren’t going to do their homework or chores and instead watch cartoons all afternoon.

Hiro wants to do that. He wants to go home, too. He wants to have a real lunch that isn’t just the mushy apple and the stale sandwich that Tadashi makes for him – the one with the shiny ham that tastes like it’s been rinsed with detergent. He wants to have sausage rolls with ketchup and bowls of steaming noodles and big bags of salty crisps and sweet custard squares and crunchy ginger slices and every kind of pie imaginable. He wants to have a _feast_.

His stomach gurgles at the thought of _food_ and he places a hand over it, almost like a silent command for it to shut up. He feels empty. Like under his skin is just a roaring, gaping cavern where a stomach should’ve been. He tries to remember what he had for breakfast that morning when it hits him that the reason he’s so ravenous is because he didn’t have _anything_.

It wasn’t his fault. Tadashi had offered him a crust of bread – not even a full slice – and Hiro had turned his nose up at it upon noticing the flecks of green, fuzzy mold hiding in it, disguised among the grains. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to make the bread taste awful. Hiro had refused it, even after his brother swore to him that he wasn’t getting anything else. It was shoved against Hiro’s mouth three too many times, and then Hiro knocked it clean out of his brother’s hand, sending it sailing across the street. It slapped to the road and was run over by the wheel of a car before either of them could react.

Tadashi had been mad. But Hiro had thought it was kind of funny.

He’d laughed. His brother had whined, as he usually did about food, and insisted that _he_ could’ve eaten that, if Hiro really hadn’t wanted it that badly. But Hiro didn’t believe him. He couldn’t understand why _anyone_ would’ve wanted to eat something so disgusting.

He peeks at his lunch and groans. It doesn’t look any more appetizing that his breakfast did. But he thinks to himself with a grin that he doesn’t have to worry about that, once he gets home. He’ll be just like other kids. He’ll help himself to the fridge when no one else is around.

Maybe he’ll even get to watch some TV. He can’t even remember the last time he’s watched TV.

An older student with a wrist-watch strolls by him and Hiro shyly asks for the time. The student takes a look and informs him with a smile, “It’s about twelve-forty,” before walking away.

Hiro stares vacantly after the student. Twelve-forty. No. Hiro’s hungry _now,_ and there’s no way he can eat whatever’s in his lunchbox. He can’t bear to wait two hours and fifty minutes for his brother. He wants to be like the other kids in his class. He wants to do the things they get to do so easily. He wants to do something differentfor a change…

He doesn’t stop to think about it. Thinking only of home – of television, of _food –_ he makes his decision to leave. He just zips up his backpack, throws it over his shoulder, and skips out the gate.

What’s one of Tadashi’s measly little treats compared to a whole _lunch?_

 

It’s the first time he’s ever walked home from school by himself. Even when Tadashi was sick and wouldn’t go to school himself, his big brother still bundled himself up in old, mildewed coats from the boxes, and still walked Hiro the two or three miles to school. And, when classes were over, Tadashi would always be there at the gate, ready and waiting to escort him back home. He always met with Hiro, even if the trip took a lot longer because Tadashi kept having to stop and lean against a wall and take wheezy breaths. Even if he had to dash to the nearest trash can to be violently sick. He still came.

Hiro tries not to think about it; he tries to think about the food instead, and it only makes him hungrier. He doesn’t even care at this point what food there is. He imagines himself, walking into the kitchen, opening up the fridge, and taking the first thing he sees into his mouth whole. He imagines Tadashi would tell him to chew before he swallows and to remember to remove the packaging first, or something like that.

It’s a nice day. He walks along the streets, pleased to see that they’re not nearly as crowded as they usually are in the mornings and afternoons. He holds a hand up to shield his eyes from the sun because it’s right in his eyes – it’s higher in the sky today than he’s used to, because he’s left so early. But it’s hard to feel annoyed by the sun when it’s so warm on his face. When he’s in such a good mood.

He smiles to himself. He made the right decision, he thinks.

But then he feels a stab of guilt as he remembers Tadashi. A sink in his chest as he thinks of how mad his big brother’s going to be, when he finally shows up at the tree, and has to look for Hiro, and…

The hunger wins out in the end.

 

The Lucky Cat café at long last comes into view and Hiro’s crooked smile stretches wide across his face. He uses the last little burst of exhausted energy he has to run to the entrance, and he lets a couple of friendly old men hold the heavy door open for him, because Tadashi isn’t here this time to do it himself.

He wanders into the café, dazed. He inhales deeply. The strong smell of what he’d come to know as ‘coffee’ and chocolate and pastries and savouries permeate the air and swirl around him, numbing him to the usual ache in his feet, enticing him to stay a while and not retreat up to the attic so soon. Not yet.

He casts his wide eyes around the café. He sees Aunt Cass behind the counter, seeing to a small line of unhurried customers. She looks to Hiro as though she’s got enough to keep her downstairs for a while, even if it’s only for a little while.

He waits until her back is turned and then he runs up the stairs.

He jumps up into the kitchen, unable to keep the grin from his face. It’s so _warm_ in there; sunlight pours in through the windows and spills across the floor. He moves over it, over to the fridge, where his first port of call lies. He tugs it open and shudders with the sudden breath of _cool_ awaiting him. His mouth falls open, just a little, as he stares at the contents. There’s a whole _feast_ – a _banquet,_ just _in there,_ fresh and chilled and untouched. Hiro doesn’t understand why Tadashi and he don’t eat from there for _every_ meal.

It’s not the first time he’s seen inside a fridge, but it certainly feels like it as Hiro reaches in. Something’s already caught his eye. A cake. A slice of _actual cake._ It looks like the kind he’s only ever seen in glossy food magazines, or on posters in dessert shops. It looks soft and creamy and juicy and… _delicious._

He ignores everything else. He picks up the plate of cake, lifts it out, and closes the fridge door. He’s close enough to _smell it_ now, and before he can even wonder if he should ask permission or not, he takes a huge bite.

It tastes every bit as good as it looks. Hiro doesn’t hold back; he grabs it with one hand and takes it to his mouth and bites into the cream and the sponge and the strawberries. A symphony of rich flavours burst on his tongue and fill out his entire mouth and throat and empty stomach. He doesn’t think he’s ever had cake before, not at home – not even on his birthday. Not a cake that had ever tasted as good as this one, right here and right now. He felt like nothing else mattered.

He brings it to his mouth a third time, fourth time, fifth time. All too soon, he’s already finished the entire thing, and he sucks his fingers one by one and laps up the crumbs and licks the plate clean of every miniscule trace of the cake ever being there.

It’s not enough, he realises. He’s still hungry. He’s had but one slice and he thinks he could easily finish off the rest of the cake, if it exists. But there’s no more cake in the fridge.

There’s plenty of other food, though.

And he helps himself.

It doesn’t take him very long to figure out which button on which remote control turns the TV on. He stares at the screen, entranced by the bright, flashing colours for a long moment, before he slowly flicks through the channels. He doesn’t know what anything is. He doesn’t know what he should be watching. He doesn’t remember the names of the shows his classmates said they watched; only that they watched cartoons. He keeps trawling through channels – there’s a lot more of them than Hiro ever thought possible, and some were _loud_ – until, finally, he stops on a cartoon show. The voices are squeaky and stupid and grate on him, but he likes the visuals. He likes the art style. It’s kind of similar to what he’d seen in Tadashi’s old comic books.

There’s only one armchair in front of the TV. Hiro takes a seat with the big tin of cookies he’d found in the pantry. He curls up and snuggles down; he can’t believe how _comfy_ the chair is. If it were any comfier, Hiro thinks, he’d fall asleep. But he tries not to as he lazily stuffs cookies into his mouth, one after the other, slower and slower as his stomach fills up, and he watches TV.

It’s nice. He feels so normal.

He feels like a little prince.

The cartoon is amusing. It stars middle-schoolers – kids who’re way older than himself – and he doesn’t always understand what they’re talking about, but he likes the dumb jokes and the stupid faces they make. He laughs. They’re so funny, and he’s so happy, and he throws his head back into the well-cushioned chair and _laughs._

He laughs so hard that he doesn’t hear her come up the stairs.

“What on earth…”

Hiro stops laughing.

He carefully sets down the last cookie he’d touched. He swallows the mouthful he already had. He feels shaky and cold all of a sudden as he turns away from the TV to kneel up and meet her gaze over the top of her armchair.

His full stomach gives a terrified little somersault.

He’s never seen her look so livid in all his life.

“What the _fuck_ do you think you are doing?”

He trembles. He doesn’t try to speak; he already knows that he can’t. But he doesn’t look away. Something in her incensed, demanding eyes isn’t letting him.

Behind him, the cartoon children on the TV laugh.

“What made you think you could just come down here and watch TV whenever you pleased? … _Huh?”_ She made her voice so loud that Hiro winced. “…Where’s your brother? Why aren’t you in school?”

Hiro weakly tries to clear his throat, which had become tight and clogged in the few seconds she’d been in the room. “I-I finished school a-already,” he stammers, but even to him it doesn’t sound like real words.

She sharpens her gaze at him – her brow furrows even further, like she’s revolted. “I can’t understand you.”

He tries again. He’s clearer, but no less croaky. “I finished school already.”

“Fine. Then fuck off.”

“Y-Yes, Aunt Cass…”

She doesn’t wait for him to leave. She groans, frustrated, muttering, “I haven’t got _time_ for this,” as she brusquely walks into the kitchen, and Hiro carefully turns off the TV. He leaves the chair and picks up his backpack. He starts for the stairs. He throws one last glance at her over his shoulder before a pang of _fear_ shoots through him and almost makes him stumble.

She’s in the fridge.

_“Hiro FUCKING Hamada!”_

Panic ignites his body like a cold, numb fire. He scrambles up the stairs, as fast as he can – he’s barely able to put one foot in front of the other, but he can’t let that slow him down, he needs to _hide, hide, hide,_ because they’re playing another heart-stopping game of _Hide and Seek_ now, and Tadashi isn’t around to help him today (and that’s his own fault), and it’s just them – just him and Aunt Cass playing now.

He hears something metal – the tin of cookies, he realises – smack to the floor, and he whines as the urge to cry bloats in his chest and tears well in his eyes. He’s too scared. He can’t handle it, he can’t take it, he can’t run fast enough, he needs Tadashi, he can’t–

He screams, shrill and sharp and petrified, as he hears her rapid footfalls behind him.

It’s not a game of _Hide and Seek_ anymore. It’s a game of _Tag._

He sees the attic door.

_“Hiro!”_

He throws it open and dives inside, turning to shove it closed on her, to keep her _out_ , but she’s far too strong. She barges straight through, like the door were cardboard, and the brute force pushes him back and makes him stumble.

His heart stops as he hears her close the door behind her.

He looks up. He only gets one terrifying glimpse of her – swooping down on him, dark and menacing – and then she slaps him so hard across the face that he’s knocked sprawled to the floor. He wails as the entire left side of his face erupts with a red-hot pain that just _rings_ and doesn’t stop ringing.

He cries. Tears run down his hot, hot face as he curls onto his side, arms instinctively coming up over his head to protect it from another blow. He flinches with every smack that she beats down on him, and he screams, _“ow, ow, OW!”_ as she screams right back at him.

_“You greedy, selfish, little pig! You little SHIT!”_

_“OW!”_

“How _dare you eat my cake – my fucking cookies, too! You awful little scrounger! You useless RUNT!”_

_“A-Aunt C– AHH!”_

“You’re _just_ like your brother!Your good-for-nothing, lying, stealing, ungrateful _bastard of a brother!”_

He can’t scream anymore. The tears and the whimpers take over; his voice is so hoarse already. His body radiates with such a harsh, striking sting he’s never, ever felt before. He wants it to stop. He wants her to stop. He opens his mouth to scream at her that he’s _sorry,_ he’s so sorry and he’ll never do it again, and he’s _sorry,_ but barely any sound comes out of him. He can’t even find the strength to breathe.

_“’Da… ‘Da!”_

He can’t even call for Tadashi.

She shouts more awful things at him and calls him more names he doesn’t know, and her smacks get less and less intense, until they stop altogether. Hiro still keeps his head down, not trusting for a second that it’s over and she’s done hurting him. Her angry, breathless pants fill the room. He hears her stumble back a little. She stomps to the corner and shouts as she throws a kick into the piles of boxes, sending several crashing down, their contents inside audibly breaking and spilling across the floorboards.

All Hiro thinks in those wild moments is that she’s going to smash everything in the room. Until it’s all broken.

But she doesn’t. She gets quiet again; her breathing calms. Hiro only hears himself now. He’s trying so hard not to let her see or hear him snivel – not to sob and whimper and cry like he wants, and he holds it all in. His heart is still pounding like a war drum, and his whole body is trembling like it’s the coldest day of winter and he’s lost all his blankets. But he doesn’t feel cold at all. He feels hot. Hot and taut and parts of him in agony.

She’s standing over him. He braces himself for more slaps to rain down on him, for more shouting and ugly words. But there are no more.

The door opens.

Footfalls descend the stairs.

And just like that, it’s all over.

He waits until he can’t her anymore.

Then he bolts for his hiding place.

His skin where she’d hit him _sears,_ and he cries out with every little pressure. He’s still shaking in a way he has no control over as he pushes himself onto his knees and then onto his feet, and he trips over the things – his parents’ things – that had covered the floor. He puts his hands out reflexively to catch himself as he falls forward, and the edge of his palm buries into a shard of something that makes Hiro shriek.

He feels the shard stick into his hand as he brings it up from the floor, but he doesn’t care. He doesn’t have time to look at it now; his heart’s still racing, he’s still on high alert. He’s still out in the open and hurt and vulnerable. He crawls along the floor, wincing and gasping. The thick, numb throbbing pain in his face and arms slow him up, but he finds his usual empty box. He leaves it toppled and just crawls inside, then he turns around and pulls the lids shut, shrouding himself in darkness. It’s not still too late to hide.

He lost the game.

But that doesn’t mean he has to lose the next one.

Finally safe, he wails into his hands.

 

The pain is too much. Every twinge of movement in his hand causes him small, muted shoots of incapacitating pain. He feels around for the thing lodged in his palm and it takes him the longest time to be brave and pull it all the way out, but he eventually he does. He chucks it away.

The cut on his hand throbs – like his cheek, like his upper arm – and he pushes his fingers to it tenderly. He can’t see, because it’s dark in the box, but he feels wet warmth pool in his palm and well over the sides and drip down.

He knows his hand is covered in blood.

He can smell it.

 

He lies down as best he can, curled up on his least sensitive side. He’s tired from crying. He’s tired of hiding. He wants to leave – he wants to shut the door because he knows it’s still wide open, and he wants to go to bathroom because he hasn’t been in a while, and he wants to have a look at his skin in the light because it still feels so hot, even after all this time. He doesn’t want to stay trapped in the box anymore.

But he does. Every little accidental nudge against the lids causes Hiro too sharp a pang of terror, and he has to close them again, even if it’s only a thin line of non-dark that comes through.

He wipes again at his wet, unseeing eyes. He swallows deep in his sore throat.

He wonders if Tadashi will be angry with him too.

 

He’s in the middle of fitful half-dreams. He nods off only to jerk awake minutes later, and then it starts all over again.

His non-injured hand gets cold and he presses it just lightly to the side of his face and to one of his arms. It doesn’t hurt so much now. But only when he doesn’t touch it.

At least he’s not hungry anymore, he thinks to himself. But it’s of little comfort to him. It does nothing to soothe him. Absolutely nothing.

He knows he’s just going to feel hungry again in a few hours.

And he thinks the food he ate made him feel a bit sick.

 

He’s just drifting off again when he hears someone running up the stairs, and his body flares with alarm all over again. He wants to _scream,_ but he keeps as quiet and still as he can, staying hidden, staying out of trouble, staying out of her way.

His brother’s petrified whisper cuts through the silence.

“Hiro? Hiro, are you in here?”

Hiro sniffs and pushes the lids to the box open weakly. It never gets all that bright in the attic, but he still squints his eyes a little. He sees Tadashi standing in the middle of the room, mouth agape and eyes wide as he stares at the floor, where broken chinaware and cracked photo frames and upturned paperbacks surround his feet. Hiro feels something like distress crossed with relief spread through him, and he forgets his hand for a split-second; he puts weight on it and cries out.

Tadashi’s head turns towards him. He rushes over instantly, falling to his knees, and Hiro flinches back.

“Hiro,” he gasps, peering in. His eyes are shiny and his face is pale. “Hiro, it’s OK, you can come out now, buddy, please…”

Hiro can’t help it. He feels terrified all over again. He remembers how hard she’d smacked him, how much it had hurt, how he couldn’t move or scream or stop her, and he starts to cry fresh, hot tears again. He scoots back into the box and cries silently and his throat clenches and swallows and _aches._

He tries to say to Tadashi everything he hadn’t been able to say to her.

He’s incomprehensible but he doesn’t care.

_“’Dashi, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to, I shouldn’t have done that, I’m sorry, I’m so bad.”_ He shudders in a half-breath. _“I’m sorry I didn’t wait for you, I’m sorry, ‘Dashi, I’m sorry – please don’t, I’m sorry.”_

A tear drips down Tadashi’s face and he swipes it away. He’s breathing hard. “H-Hiro, it’s _OK,_ really, just _please_ come out, please.” He offers Hiro one of his hands. It’s shaking. _“Please.”_

_“Are you angry with me–“_

“I’m _not_ angry with you, buddy,” Tadashi shakes his head fiercely. “I’m not, I’m not, just– please come out. I need to see you.”

Hiro squeezes his eyes shut. He takes a couple of small breaths. He has a few seconds of safety and darkness, and then he takes Tadashi’s hand. He gingerly edges himself out from the box and gets back onto his feet after what must’ve been hours.

He glances, not at Tadashi first, but at the door. He sees it closed – like how she had closed it behind her.And the panic inside Hiro spikes.

He doesn’t know whether he wants the door open or closed.

Tadashi’s arms come around him, before he even knows what to do, and his brother bumps the sore spots on his arms, igniting pain. Hiro’s convinced that his brother is going to hurt him too; he shrieks hoarsely and tries to push Tadashi away from him.

Tadashi steps back, like Hiro clearly wants. He stares. A severe look enters Tadashi’s face like he knows exactly what’s wrong.

“Hiro…” Tadashi’s bottom lip trembles but Hiro sees that he’s trying to keep it in a firm, straight line. “Where did she hit you?”

The question stuns Hiro, and he stops crying. He stares up at his brother and feels himself calm down a little and be comforted by his presence. Tadashi hesitantly raises a hand to touch Hiro on the cheek, where he’d been struck. He winces a little, but he doesn’t bat the hand aside or move away.

Tadashi makes a noise like someone just punched him in the gut.

“Sh-She hit me,” Hiro utters aloud. It feels strange to say. Like a confession to a crime he didn’t think he’d committed. Like a weight has come off his chest.

But he still doesn’t understand.

He tries to make his voice less croaky and repeats, “’Dashi, she hit me. She hit me.”

“Here?” Tadashi asks. His voice doesn’t sound anywhere near close to right, but Hiro thinks he can still hear his big brother. “On your face?”

Hiro nods. “And my arm.” He points to the arm that had hurt the most and he flinches when he hears Tadashi draw in a sharp breath. Tadashi’s not looking at his arm; he’s looking at his hand. Hiro looks at it too and his eyes bug. Parts of it are caked in dark, dried blood. He’s never seen so much on him before. The rest of his hand looks like… he’s just come from art class.

_“God,”_ Tadashi breathes. He holds out his hand, palm facing up, and Hiro gives his own bloodied hand to him. Tadashi traces the red back to a cut that Hiro thinks looks bad, even though it’s stopped bleeding. “God, Hiro…” He prods it a little and Hiro squeaks. Hiro tries to yank his hand back, but Tadashi won’t let him. He grips his little brother tight and doesn’t let go. “Hiro… _ff… shit.”_

Hiro looks up at his brother. Tadashi has his arm bent and his face buried into the crook of his elbow. He’s still quivering a lot.

All of a sudden, Tadashi sniffs and comes back out of his blazer. Hiro notices that Tadashi’s eyes are red and wet, but Tadashi still smiles a little. “OK, buddy, this cut isn’t good.” He gestures Hiro’s injured hand. He starts to walk them both gently towards the bathroom. “We need to disinfect it and get rid of any bad germs before they make you sick. OK?”

“O-K.”

Tadashi switches the light on. Hiro watches as his brother moves with purpose around the small bathroom. He pulls a first aid packet – Hiro didn’t even know they had one – seemingly out of nowhere. It’s small, and it doesn’t look like a proper kit from what Hiro’s seen before in picture books. From inside, Tadashi pulls out a little roll of gauze and a little bottle of clear fluid. He runs the tap on warm and takes Hiro’s hand back into his again, inspecting it closer.

“What happened, buddy?”

Hiro doesn’t answer. He doesn’t know whether Tadashi’s asking how he got the cut, or if he’s asking… what happened.

Tadashi looks up into his brother’s eyes. “Did you cut it on all that broken glass?” he asks and Hiro nods. Tadashi nods with him. “Is there anymore glass still in there?” he asks and Hiro shakes his head. Tadashi gives another nod before he feels the stream of water, and then he pulls Hiro’s hand toward the sink. “Just run it under some water for a while, buddy.”

Hiro does as he’s asked. He winces as warm water washes over his wound and washes the blood away, but he learns to withstand it after a few more seconds. He glances up at his reflection in the mirror above the sink and blinks, surprised. His cheek… It’s engulfed in a bright reddish pink _._ It looks like a really bad sunburn. But only on the left side of his face. He pokes it gently and– yep. It still hurts.

“OK, Hiro,” Tadashi murmurs and Hiro looks over to him. He’d barely noticed his big brother had been preparing an antiseptic swab. Tadashi shuts off the water behind him. “You’re being _so good,_ buddy, you really are.” He towels off the skin around the wound. He gets a firm hold of Hiro’s hand and poises the swab over it and Hiro can just _smell_ the antiseptic. It stings in his nose like he knows it’s going to in his hand. “I’m sorry, buddy, I’ll try to be quick. You ready?”

Hiro steels himself. He screws up his face and closes his eyes.

Even so, he still cries out and whimpers.

He struggles.

“I’m almost done, Hiro – just hold still for a few more seconds, OK? You’re being _such_ a brave boy. Do you remember the most common antiseptic solution? We learnt it just the other day.”

Hiro does remember. “E-Ethanol,” he stammers tearfully.

“Good job.”

The awful, slicing, stinging pain recedes. He slowly unclenches his eyes to see Tadashi carefully wrapping the gauze over the wound, around and around his hand. He watches Tadashi do this for a minute or so before his big brother snips off the roll and tucks the gauze into the bandage. But he doesn’t put the first aid packet away.

As Hiro stares at his bandaged hand, Tadashi presses a kiss to his forehead. He just rests there for a while, and Hiro lets him.

He feels a little sailboat – just minding its own business – sink inside of him. His brother breathes a shaky sigh and swallows hard and finally tells him, “Let’s take a look at your arm, buddy.”

But it’s not just one arm. It’s both of them. Hiro unbuttons his school shirt – the descent of his fingers matching the descent of the sunken sailboat – and lets it slip off him to the floor.

He immediately gathers from the way the breath catches in Tadashi’s throat that he looks bad.

He stares at himself in the mirror. He’s bruised. It’s only been a few hours and already swatches of the skin on his upper arms and shoulders are mottled and far too colourful. Reds and blues and purples and a bit of black too. He wonders if that’s it, or if they’re going to get worse before they can get better. He’d had bruises before, but… he’s never had any that dark before. None that large.

He looks closer. He thinks he can make out something a little like a handprint.

“’Dashi,” he asks in a small voice. “Did I do something really bad?”

Hiro hears a wet sob behind him. He spins around to see his brother has his head dropped into his hands, and he’s shaking it, back and forth, like he was a metronome. He’s stilltrembling.

It makes Hiro uneasy to watch.

“’Dashi…?”

But Tadashi doesn’t answer him.

Hiro can only offer Tadashi a feeble hug.

 

Tadashi doesn’t go to work in the café. Instead he stays in the attic, for the entire afternoon, and Hiro cherishes every extra second he gets to spend with his brother. Even though they spend the majority of their time sweeping the floors, and brushing bits of broken glass and ceramics into pieces of old newspaper, and repacking things, and stacking boxes back into the corner, Hiro still enjoys it. Even when he accidentally puts pressure on his cut, or bumps his bruises into a wall, and he yells out when it hurts.

He still smiles and tries to show Tadashi that he’s happy, and there’s no reason for his big brother to look so sad now.

 

After a while, Tadashi just stops. He takes Hiro by his good hand and, without a word, guides him to the mattress. He coaxes Hiro to sit down and Hiro crosses his legs and stares up at Tadashi, wide-eyed and expectant.

Tadashi sighs.

“Hiro, I’m… I’m sorry about today. I’m so sorry. This is all my fault – _none_ of this would’ve happened if I’d _only_ _just…_ ”

He calms down. He relaxes his shoulders and takes a deep breath. He lets it out slowly.

“If I’d only just remembered that your class got out early. I could’ve… Something could’ve been different.”

“I didn’t wait for you,” Hiro says quietly, guilty and ashamed. “I should’ve waited for you.”

A pained look enters Tadashi’s expression, but his eyes never leave Hiro’s. Not for a second.

He takes longer than usual to respond.

“…Hiro, I… I want you to understand that _this isn’t your fault._ OK? What happened today… That… Aunt Cass, well– she works hard. She’s incredibly busy, all of the time. She just… She just gets stressed. She gets tired and angry and, sometimes, when she’s had a really bad day, she does things that… she regrets. Or, she says things she doesn’t mean. But… I want you to know that Aunt Cass _loves us._ She does _so_ much for us. OK, buddy?”

Hiro stares at his brother.

He isn’t convinced.

“I don’t think you realise just how much she does for us, and how many sacrifices she’s had to make. I mean, look – she gave us our own _room._ ” He raises a hand to gesture the attic. “We have our own _bed.”_ He pats at the mattress Hiro is sitting on. “We have our own _bathroom.”_ He points to it.“We go to a good school, we have all these things, and she makes us a nice dinner every night. Isn’t that great, Hiro?”

Hiro slowly nods.

Even though he isn’t sure anymore.

“So… So, you see, buddy…” Tadashi places a hand on Hiro’s head. He lowers his gaze to his lap, and his voice sounds like it’s been lowered too. “Aunt Cass is sorry for what she did. She’s just had a rough week, that’s all. She still loves us heaps. But… in future, I want you to wait for me after school.” His eyes flick up and he fixes Hiro with a soft, serious look. “OK? Even if you finish class early. Just, wait for me in the library or something. Don’t just disappear onme like that. You had me worried _sick_ today.”

Hiro goes back to feeling guilty again. He leans his head against Tadashi’s chest and murmurs, “Sorry, ‘Dashi,” and Tadashi drops a kiss onto the top of his head.

“It’s OK, Hiro. It’s OK. We’re OK. Everything’s going to be fine. Just… _never_ come home without me, ever again. Promise?”

He doesn’t even want to.

 

Eventually it gets dark outside. It gets close to the time they’d usually have dinner.

Hiro’s hungry. But at least the full brunt of it has been staved off by the overwhelming anxiety he feels about facing Aunt Cass again.

Tadashi checks the time on his watch and then he stands up. “Hiro, I’m just going to go downstairs for a while,” he murmurs, crossing the room and opening up the door. “I won’t be long. Dinner’s not too far away.”

Before he can even leave the room, Hiro has already shot across it and thrown his arms around Tadashi’s middle. He shoots frantic looks up at Tadashi and begs, “’Dashi, please don’t go, please, please.”

Tadashi groans a little. “Hiro, it’s OK. I’ll be back real soon, I promise.”

_“No-ooo,”_ Hiro whines, feeling the panic rise up in him. “Don’t _leave me.”_

Tadashi huffs a little. He pulls Hiro carefully away from him and kneels down. He goes to place one hand on Hiro’s shoulder but then he catches himself and it veers up to his head instead, where it pets him nicely.

“Hiro, I _have_ to go downstairs. You’ll be OK up here on your own while I, ah, help Aunt Cass make our dinner. You want dinner, don’t you? I know I sure do. I think it’s gonna be sausages tonight. You love sausages.”

Hiro doesn’t care. He feels afraid so much more than he feels hungry right now, and he presses himself to his brother once again and whimpers. He hears Tadashi sigh as his hand comes around to rub Hiro’s back soothingly, but it sounds so deflated now. So tired.

“Do we still have to say thank you to Aunt Cass?” Hiro asks. “After dinner?”

Tadashi doesn’t answer his question for a while.

But eventually he does.

“Yeah, buddy,” he says quietly. “Yeah. We do.”

“Why?”

Tadashi doesn’t answer that question.

He just squeezes Hiro and leaves the room.

 

When Tadashi comes back to the attic, it’s to take Hiro away from the book he’d forced himself to read from start to finish, and then from the start again when there was nothing else to do. Tadashi murmurs, “Time for dinner, buddy,” as usual, but there’s no heart behind it. Not even a smile. Tadashi doesn’t even look sure whether he can even touch Hiro anymore, as he tries to wave him down the stairs. And Hiro is just as quiet and stiff as he is.

He won’t go into the kitchen first. He refuses. He digs his heels into the second-to-last stair and secures his fingers against the wall, and he whines when Tadashi tries to push him forward. His brother pushes and pushesand Hiro _strains_ to hold his ground until, Tadashi suddenly stops pushing.

He walks ahead of Hiro, into the light of the kitchen. He turns back and bends a little to look him in the eye. “She’s not in here,” he assures, as gently as he can, like he’s trying to lure Hiro down the rest of the way. He tries on a smile – Hiro hasn’t seen it look so wrong before – and holds out a hand for Hiro to take. “C’mon, buddy. Dinner’s getting cold…”

He takes Tadashi’s hand. He steps down.

Everything seems normal. The dishwasher is on, dishes await them, the kitchen smells warm and divine, and steam rises up from two plates on the table. Hiro takes a seat after his brother and they both murmur _“Itadakimasu”_ at the same time. But then Hiro looks at the food and notices something unusual.

Dinner’s burnt.

But Aunt Cass cooks every day; she hardly ever burns anything.

He comes to the conclusion that she must’ve done it on purpose.

He takes a lot longer to eat than he does on any other night. He slowly cuts up bits of blackened sausage and too-crisp roast vegetables and sadly puts them in his mouth, and chews and swallows like he’s supposed to. He eats in complete silence – he doesn’t utter a single word, just like Tadashi. He eats everything on his plate, no matter how much the burnt taste scours his mouth, and he finishes eating just a little before his brother.

Tadashi offers the few last bites off his plate to Hiro. But Hiro declines them.

Once his plate is empty, Tadashi doesn’t move for a few long moments. He continues to sit there, staring at nothing, saying nothing, until finally he mutters, “You can sit this one out today, buddy. I’ll wash and dry the dishes.”

Tadashi rises from his chair, picks up the two plates and heads for the sink.

Hiro follows him over.

“’Dashi.”

Tadashi hums.

Hiro shoves up one of his shirt sleeves. “My arm looks worse.”

Tadashi doesn’t even look at the blackening bruises, and he still winces.

“Will people make fun of me?”

That earns Tadashi’s attention. He lets the sink fill up with hot water while he looks down at Hiro, eyes softly crinkled with… something. “Hiro, you can’t let anyone see those bruises.”

Hiro blinks. “Why?”

“You’ll just have to switch to wearing your sweater for P.E. class, OK?” Tadashi drizzles some dishwashing liquid into the sink. “And you should keep your blazer on too.”

“But it gets hot.”

Tadashi shuts off the water. He starts methodically washing dishes. “I know, buddy. I know. But, the days are getting colder,” he offers. “It’ll be fall soon.”

Hiro stares. He still doesn’t understand.

“Why can’t I let anyone see? That I’ve been naughty?”

Tadashi sighs.

“…Will they punish me too?”

Tadashi takes his hands out of the sink, dries them off, and bends down to Hiro so that he’s eye-level with him. His big brother’s eyes are shiny and wobbling again. “Listen to me,” he whispers desperately. “You… are a brave _, brave_ little fighter. You’re a warrior. But you’re a… quiet warrior. A secret warrior.”

Hiro perks up. “Like a ninja?”

He watches Tadashi’s chest deflate sharply, like there was a small cave-in there. His brother nods, smiling, and moves a sleeve across his face. “Yeah, buddy.” He sniffs. “Just like a ninja. So that’s why… you can’t ever let anyone see your bruises. OK?”

“OK.”

Tadashi goes back to the dishes, while Hiro sits back down and fantasises of being a ninja.

 

“Hey buddy.”

Hiro flinches as Tadashi puts a hand on his head and his eyes fly open. He doesn’t even know how he’d fall asleep in such an awkward position.

His heart fills with dread as Tadashi pulls him up out of the chair, away from the table. He knows what time it is now.

But he doesn’t want to say thank you to her.

“C’mon Hiro,” Tadashi whispers as he has to take Hiro’s hands – one much more gently than the other – and walk him towards the stairs. Hiro moves around the top bannisters, the first stair just a small drop below him, but all he sees is a narrow descent into a dark, cool, unknowable cavern. He imagines it’s the home to some dormant beast they should avoid at all costs. Tadashi gives him a little push from behind and Hiro has no choice but to take the first step.

He feels like he’s going to cry.

“It’s OK, Hiro, I’m here, I’m here with you,” his brother assures him quietly from behind, as they climb down the stairs, one at a time, until they reach the café. Hiro looks around for her, tossing his head around wildly, in a panic, and then he spots her at one of the tables at the back, by the window.

He’s stopped walking. Tadashi has to be the one to shift him forward again.

They come around a pillar to stand a little aways from her table. She was sitting there, silent and still, a book out in front of her, a glass of red wine in her hand. Instead of a light, she had lit the lily-white candle that she sometimes put out on the tables for catered dinners. The light from the flame lit up and flickered across her face, like she was about to tell a spooky story.

For once, she notices them there and looks up.

Hiro stares at her with wide, frightened eyes. He swallows.

Tadashi doesn’t come around to the side of him, like he normally does. He stays behind Hiro, but close enough that Hiro can rest the back of his head against his abdomen. One of his big brother’s hands touches his head, and the other lies on his shoulder, almost just over it. Tadashi’s fingers curl into him, like he’s alert and ready to grab his little brother and pull him away if necessary. Hiro can’t see it, but it feels like such a protective stance, and it puts him at ease a little bit.

But at the same time, it makes his blood run cold.

No one speaks for a while. And then Tadashi asks, “What do you say, Hiro.”

His heart thumps hard and loud in his chest. He remembers the unbearable fear of her chasing him, the immense pain she’d caused him, all of the horrible things she’d said about him and his brother.

He doesn’t ever want it to happen again.

He can barely get the words out.

“Th-Thank you, Aunt C-Cass.”

“Thank you, Aunt Cass.” Tadashi bows a little, over Hiro’s head. “We’re sorry about today. We’re incredibly grateful for everything that you do for us. We love you.”

Hiro can’t keep his breathing under control. He starts panting, and Aunt Cass shifts her unreadable gaze from Tadashi back to him. She stares and stares and stares, and he stares right back. He wonders for a heart-stopping moment if she’s going to apologise too, or tell him that it’s OK now and she’s not still mad with him…

But she doesn’t.

She doesn’t do anything.

She just takes a lengthy sip from her glass and turns her eyes back to her book.

Hiro’s breathing stutters, and then he’s being pulled away, twisted around and pushed back towards the stairs, and Hiro walks toward them as fast as he can without breaking into a run, because he’s not allowed to run in the café. He dashes up the stairs and up the next set of stairs, and he then he remembers how _scared_ he’d been when she’d followed him, and he barely makes it to the attic door before he’s slouched into the wall, gasping and shaking, burying his face – the left side _still hurts –_ into his hands and wailing for his brother.

Tadashi’s arms come all the way around him, pressing against his bruises, and he shooshes Hiro, quiet and urgent. He picks him Hiro under his knees and back, and takes him into the attic and puts him on the mattress.

Hiro clings to Tadashi as he cries, and he doesn’t let go for the rest of the night. While Tadashi pats him and comforts him and tells him helplessly that it’s all OK, and he’s OK, and everything is going to be OK, so long as he keeps hiding, and does whatever she asks, and doesn’t _ever_ touch her food or her things without permission. So long as he waits for Tadashi every day after school, like he asks. Tadashi swears then that he’ll never be hurt by her again…

Hiro still doesn’t understand.

But he thinks he’s starting to.


End file.
